The present invention refers to a continuous reaction micro-reactor, specifically to a continuous micro-reactor of modular structure.
In continuous reaction technology, a plurality of feeds or reactants continuously flowing into a reactor or micro-reactor chemically interact therein to form a product that continuously flows out of it. Within the reactor, there is provided a process fluid channel system bringing together, mixing and swirling the plurality of feeds embedded in an optimum reaction environment, especially a characteristic temperature regime, for the chemical reactions to take place. The process fluid channel system may be divided into at least one turbulent-flow mixing zone and at least one essentially laminar-flow retention zone that are appropriately arranged in series. In case of more than one mixing zone and/or retention zone, they are concatenated in a suitable manner. In order to establish a well determined temperature regime, a heat exchange system, for example in the form of channels, is generally integrated.
A micro-reactor of the above described type is disclosed, for example, in EP 1 839 739 A1, which is a modular micro-reactor comprising a plurality of process modules and heat exchange modules arranged to form a stack. The process modules are connected externally to produce a large or long flow-channel system by adding the individual sub-systems, and due to the heat exchange modules, a section-wise heating or cooling of the chemical substances (reactants, product) flowing in the flow-channel system is achieved (using in this paragraph the terminology applied in document EP 1 839 739 A1 which is not always identical to the one used herein).
The development of such reactors is a sophisticated task that even nowadays can not satisfactorily be solved by computer simulation, requiring supplemental experimental studies to propel progress in the field.
An object of the present invention is to provide a laboratory-size micro-reactor for in situ research of continuous reaction technology that enables researchers to get a deeper understanding of the fluid dynamics involved that may later be scaled-up to industrial size.